Yes, I can see that OP, I mean its all not very pleasant.
I suppose I just think of it in my head as well thats the reality. When a child is abused, when someone is a prostitute or and addict or both, when there is gang violence or children recruited to gangs, when there is violent crime its not at all 'nice' or enjoyable to watch, at times its much worse than shown on the film and it may depend on your experiences as to how comfortable you are with its portrayal.
Just to be clear, as tone is quite hard to gauge over the internet, I'm not saying this in a FFS what did you expect way, or trying to patronise you, I'm more speculating on your reaction. I don't think yabu as while I didn't find Ill Manors upsetting, I was absolutely distraught at bloody Marley and Me so I definitely do not judge.
I do think as I said before, it represents elements of reality but the part where it fails is to show how low the percentage of people really involved, it sort of ignored the outside world around the characters. The murder of a 14 year old girl generally is heavily investigated, its rare for there to be such little involvement from SS and some of these facts were glossed over. But it did represent the struggles some face and I think the early story about the boy who had his face cut showed perfectly how one thing leads to another and the struggles lots of children face.